


The Expedition is Nothing

by Druluci6



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Existential Crisis, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Druluci6/pseuds/Druluci6
Summary: Harry Goodsir thinks about all that's happened. Set after The C, The C, The Open C.From the @terror_exe tweet: The expedition is nothing.
Relationships: Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Kudos: 13
Collections: @terror_exe Flash Fest





	The Expedition is Nothing

The expedition is nothing. 

The words came to Harry's fractured mind as he lay in the tent, listening to Hickey's men yell at each other. In his stolen tent, a stolen anatomist, he wondered how they'd gotten so lost. This place didn't want them and had done its best to destroy them all, one by one, a personalized hell for their own personal hubris. 

The expedition is nothing. 

Again the sentence floated in his head, lost in the malaise and emptiness of his situation. The emptiness of himself. It swirled with the memories of the last three years. The ship creaking in port, the sad goodbyes to loved ones, the smell of the sea, the sounds of the men working all around him. Seeing new animals and new plants in new lands. Mending injuries more difficult and more real than he had ever dealt with. Meeting men from all walks of life, learning how'd they wound up on the HMS Erebus, in his little sickbay, talking to him. 

Meeting Silna, his Lady Silence, who spoke incessantly to him when no one else heard. Who let him try to save her father from their bullets and forgave him when he couldn't. Who told him tales of her life like he was a child, so he could understand how love and community kept her people alive in the seemingly endless cold. How their gods protected them and kept them warm. She told him about her father, though she spoke so fast that he couldn't understand her words but understood the sentiment all the same. He wished nothing more than that the damage they'd done to her, to this place, would be erased. 

He never wanted her to see him like this, but wished deeply to see her again, just once, to know that she was okay. To see her one more time. His Lady Silence. The memory came and went. 

Meeting Dr. Stanley, the angriest man he'd ever met. A doctor to be appreciated, feared, respected. Harry wanted to learn all he could teach, and at first, the older man was generous, answering questions and explaining his work. But as they went further into the sea, his manner changed, far beyond the solemnity that overtook many around him. It was a darkness and a bitterness. He became sharp, mean, ugly. Harry saw the unhappiness in him but couldn't reach it. That failure made Harry angry and bitter too, and he stopped trying. For that, so many men lost their lives. That wasn't his fault, but it was. 

He dreamed of saving Dr. Stanley before the flames, reaching into him and catching the darkness before it spread. He never could. That memory disappeared too. 

Meeting Henry Collins, a man so unlike himself that he marveled. At first, the big man smiled at everyone, talked nonstop, and hugged people when they least expected it, which was all the time. Harry had no idea why Henry talked to him at all, other than the fact that he talked to everyone. His easy charm made Harry feel comfortable, and then he started talking too. Soon, he had a friend. Eventually, Henry’s mood changed too. One day, he was complaining of headaches; the next that his elbows hurt to straighten. By the middle of the third year, he was barely a shell of himself most of the time but could put on a show when he had to. He would come to Harry's sickbay when he knew Dr. Stanley would be away and tell him about the pain and the darkness, the fear of the sea that he'd never had before. 

One night, he came later than usual and whispered to Harry that he knew he was losing himself, and that he'd never get back. Harry had tried to calm him, offering him a draught for the pain, but instead, Henry pulled Harry into another surprise hug. "See," Harry said, trying to be hopeful. "You're already feeling better." Henry caught his face and kissed him. He'd never kissed another man before. The anatomist in him knew the man clutching him wasn't well. The man in him wanted it to go on forever. Too soon, he heard footsteps and pulled away. Looking at Henry, he saw his old friend, his dear old friend, for just a moment. "Before I forget," he said cheerfully but quietly. Dr. Stanley opened the door, but Harry barely noticed. Henry was gone again into the fog. 

His Henry, lost to the bear that was more than a bear. He let him recede back into his thoughts. 

The expedition is nothing. 

After the fire that took so many, after Silna was left on the ice in hopes that the bear would leave them alone, after abandoning the ships with hope that they'd be able to walk to safety, after the mutiny, after his own abduction, after the unspeakable acts he'd had to commit in the name of greed, fear, and the unquenchable desire to live, after all of it, they were still lost. That was good. Let the Arctic claim them, bury them, destroy them in the name of saving itself. If there was any justice in the universe, they would be erased from history, nothing remembered, nothing remained. Let the Bear-shaped God destroy them. Let their legacy be emptiness. 

The expedition is nothing.


End file.
